Hunting Down Amanda [Hardcover]

Andrew Klavan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 23, 1999

Lonnie Blake's life and career have been on the skids since his wife was murdered eighteen months ago. Then one chilly autumn night, Carol Dodson steps suddenly out of the darkness and into his life. For one night Lonnie and Carol become lovers as Carol, a sometime prostitute, agrees to pretend she's the woman Lonnie loved and tragically lost. The passion he thought he had lost with the death of his wife returns through Carol. Finally, obsessed, he begins to follow her -- and so is led on by desire into a world of sudden danger and sudden death, a swiftly closing trap of intrigue and murder, for Carol is not what she seems. She is the lone guardian of an incredible secret. And soon, she and Lonnie will be targeted by a team of international killers willing to murder anyone who gets in their way.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The inventive and audacious Andrew Klavan never covers the same ground twice, and his latest psychological thriller is about as far as you can get from his previous bestsellers, True Crime and The Uncanny.

What all his books have in common is a growing assurance as you turn the first few pages that you're in good, honorable hands--that the author won't trick you shamelessly or go off on some tedious tangent. So, without losing a beat, a book that begins with a horrible plane explosion that rains down fire over a Massachusetts village can shift seamlessly into a jazz musician's hunt for his lost love and an executive hit man's search for a little girl.

When that plane crashes over the small coastal town of Hunnicut (in a scene probably better not read during or just before a flight of your own), 5-year-old Amanda Dodson--"a roundish little mixed-race girl with a quiet, thoughtful manner"--escapes from her babysitter's burning house and wanders into the woods. That's where her young mother, Carol, who works as a cocktail waitress (and does occasional sexual favors for customers), finds her after an agonizing search. With Amanda is one of the plane's passengers, apparently brought back to life by the girl's formidable healing abilities. "Now they'll come after her!" Carol Dodson cries, before fleeing with the child to New York City.

In Manhattan, she has a brief encounter with a grieving saxophone genius named Lonnie Blake. Captivated by her resemblance to his late wife, Blake tries to find Carol again, but he is not the only one hunting down Carol and Amanda. Others want to capture the little girl to exploit her amazing healing powers for profit.

In lesser hands, these ingredients might add up to nothing more than a shameless potboiler, but Klavan has powers of his own--a magic touch that humanizes even the smallest characters and makes them a part of our own world. --Dick Adler

From Publishers Weekly

1999 may be Klavan's breakout year: the film version of his novel True Crime, starring Clint Eastwood, was a hit, and Morrow is backing his immensely exciting new novel with a major promo campaign. Any breakout will be past due. Admirers of Klavan thrillers acknowledged (Don't Say a Word, etc.) and pseudonymous (as Keith Peterson, The Scarred Man, etc.) know that this author at his best bows to no one for whiplash plotting and page-whirling suspense. He's at his best here. The novel opens full-tilt, with a rain of flesh and "liquid fire" on a small town in Massachusetts. Into the ground-level conflagration caused by the plane explosion walks a little girl. Her mother, Carol Dodson, chases after her and finds her in the arms of a man staggering through the fire, who hands the girl to Carol. "Oh God," Carol says in a moment of clarity whose significance is revealed only later, "now they'll come after her." And a team of villains does, with shocking fierceness, alerted to Amanda's location by the incident and headed by one Edmund Winter, a killer as stone-cold as his name and dispatched by a multinational corporation with a lethalAif a bit too incredibleAinterest in both little Amanda and the man at the crash site. Fighting to save the girl are several equally desperate characters, including her mother, now on the run, willing to do anything, including selling her body, for her daughter; Lonnie Blake, a soul-blasted jazz musician looking for a reason to live; and an embittered lit professor stricken with cancer. Related in trim, athletic prose, the novel unfolds around New England and New York City as an extended, twisty chase, breathtaking but seriously deepened by its fallible heroes' varied struggles for redemption. The ending is a kick in the solar plexus but feels just right: this is a thriller with smarts equal to its ultra-slick style. $300,000 ad/promo; author tour; rights sold in the U.K., France, Italy, Germany, Holland and Japan.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow; 1st edition (June 23, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0688168957
• ISBN-13: 978-0688168957
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.6 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (46 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,505,714 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Andrew Klavan has been nominated for the Mystery Writer of America's Edgar award five times and won twice. He is the author of several bestselling novels, including Don't Say A Word, filmed starring Michael Douglas, True Crime, filmed by Clint Eastwood, and Empire of Lies. He is currently writing a series of thrillers for young adults called The Homelanders. The first two novels in the series are The Last Thing I Remember and The Long Way Home. Klavan is a contributing editor to City Journal and his essays have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, among other places. His satiric video commentaries can be seen on PJTV.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Quite A Ride, December 12, 2001

By 

sweetmolly (RICHMOND, VA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Hunting Down Amanda (Mass Market Paperback)

Andrew Klavan wins my 2001 annual award for "Most Heart-Stopping Opener." Lordy! A bucolic summer scene in quaint Hunnicutt, MA and then,

"A white-hot light spilled wide across the face of heaven ---as if the sky had been obliterated by a blinding stain."

A commercial aircraft has exploded in mid-air over the town center, and it is raining metal, fire and body parts. A little girl runs amid the falling debris to find her mother. Thus we are introduced to Amanda who is the epicenter of a desperate search by the government and a pharmaceutical company (all bad guys). Why? It seems Amanda is able to "sparkle" people, to use her words. She can heal by touch. This gift is neither occult nor spiritual, but the result of drug experimentation. The catch? Amanda is depleted by her "sparkling," and if overused, will die. Her street-smart mother has been on the run for a year. The rest of the novel is the chase by the bad guys and the obsession for the mother, Carol by haunted musician, Lonnie.

The characterizations are expertly done and highly believable. Each player is etched on your mind. This is the strongest part of the book. However, the plot becomes so fantastic, it is almost ludicrous. I can suspend belief for maybe three impossible escapes, but not ten or twenty. The pace is pounding, and the ending is poignant; but I had left any believability behind. Grade B-

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Klavan's most readable novel, one of the summer's best!, August 17, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Hunting Down Amanda (Hardcover)

I found this book delightful. Whether you are a Klavan fan (as I am) or simply a genre-shopper out for a great, fast read from an author you haven't read before, you should find something enjoyable in "Amanda." It sizzles along like the best thriller bestsellers, but it has the depth of character and plot that few summer potboilers ever achieve. Granted, like many thrillers it is necessary to suspend your disbelief occassionally, but one of Klavan's strengths is his ability to make you willingly suspend it. And maybe Klavan has written more seamlessly plotted novels in the past, but none as accessible. I strongly recommend it to anyone who loves Klavan's work, but also to fans of Thomas Harris, Jeffrey Deaver, early Dean Koontz or later Robert McCammon.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Healing touch, December 14, 2005

By 

Beverley Strong (Australia) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hunting Down Amanda (Mass Market Paperback)

Five year old Amanda, has, by reason of a dose of chemicals, injected into her father before her birth, by a pharmaceutical company, the power to heal with a touch. This has made her the target of unscrupulous men who wish to sell her to the highest bidder, and have forced her mother Carol, an uneducated cocktail waitress, turned prostitute, to keep constantly on the run in an effort to outwit the baddies. Recently widowed saxophonist, Lonnie who is spiralling downwards in a haze of alcohol, literally bumps into Carol and saves her, at least temporarily, from the clutches of the crooks. They spend the night together, with Carol captivating Lonnie so much that he stalks her, putting himself in great danger from that moment on. After many adventures in which other innocent people are involved and ultimately killed, Carol, Lonnie and Amanda are helped to make a final run for freedom by a reformed crook, who sacrifices himself to save the child. I agree with other reviewers that it has the makings of a "made for cable" movie, but I found it to be an exciting read nevertheless!